SONNETS ON THE WAR 



BY 



COURTNEY LANGDON 




QassJLi^ 



Book 



^uJO. 



*S«i 



CORfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



SONNETS ON THE WAR 



BY 



COURTNEY LANGDON 



PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

PRESTON & ROUNDS CO, 
I 9 I 7 






Copyright, 191 7, by Courtney Langdon 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



PRESS OF TOWNSEND, F. H. 
PROVIDENCE, R. I., U. S. A. 



©CI.A479 502 

a X 



TO MY SONS IN FRANCE 

CHAUNCY TAFT LANGDON 

AND 

ROBERT COURTNEY LANGDON 



PRUSSIA 



/^F old, when time was still eternity, 

God made the angel Lucifer, a bright 
And rising star of intellectual light, 
Lord of matter and necessity. 

But filled with pride, and hating Liberty, 

Great Lucifer rebelled, and turned his might 
'Gainst Love and Justice, till, self-outlawed, Night 
Received him, and the loyal heavens were free. 

A myth ! Yet Jesus, too, beheld him fall 

As lightning out of Heaven, and we, as well, 
In spirit see the same, who now behold 

Prussia's despotic pride attempt to thrall 

Mankind, and fall eclipsed, as Satan fell, 

By world-wide Freedom's dawning Age of Gold. 

April 19, 191 7. 

[5] 



LIEGE 



A H, little Belgium, that in Caesar's age 

Wast of the Gauls the bravest, thou hast won 
In ours the glorious prize of those that run 
On honor's course, and dare take up the gage 

Tyrants throw down. Thy name shines on the page 
Time saves for deeds eternal. When the Hun 
Sprang at his western victim, there was none 
But thee, at first, to brave his brutal rage — 

None but thy soul and thee at Liege to stand, 
As at Thermopylae the Spartans stood, 
That Hellas might belong to Freedom's heirs. 

All that Leonidas' immortal band 

Gave at its gates for their world's highest good, 
Leman and his brave Belgians gave for theirs. 

October 3, 1916. 

[7] 



THE MARNE 



/^ REATEST of rivers crowned by destiny, 
Time has not given thee all thy glory yet. 
Nor realized how measureless the debt 
Of gratitude mankind will owe to thee ; 

For on thy banks, proud Marne, the chivalry, 
Intelligence and faith of Freedom met, 
Lured on, and, crushing, prisoned in a net 
Of trenches Blood and Iron's tyranny. 

Along thy eighty leagues of ravished plain 

France's outnumbered armies stood, and fought, 
To save the culture of the Christian West ; 

And, flanked by Britain's vanguard, raised again 

The walls of Justice Greece and Rome had wrought, 
The spires of Peace which Palestine had blest. 

October 10, 191 6. 

[9] 



JOFFRE 



\X7HENE'ER her goal is threatened, Nature makes 
A man in her own image, and endows 
His spirit with her gifts. Upon his brows 
Her modesty sits lightly, as he takes 

His country's fate in hand, and slowly wakes 
To gratitude a world, whose wonder bows 
Before a name long centuries will house 
As nobly as the stars are shrined by lakes. 

Such, JofFre, seem the gifts revealed by thee, 

Since the full flood of Prussia's pride was rolled 
Back to its ebb by thy sublime Retreat. 

Thy calm prepared the Marne for victory ; 

Thy patient firmness steeled the Meuse to hold; 
Thy silence warns the Rhine of its defeat. 

September 24, 19 16. 

[»] 



KITCHENER 



1VTOT his to draw, but his to forge, the sword 
Which Europe asked of Britain in her need ; 
Not his to hear the plaudits of the freed, 
When God's c Day' dawns on Prussia's broken word; 

Nor his to live, who could so well afford 

To pass, and let some fellow Briton lead 

The promised hosts, whom only he could breed 

And steel, to conquer Prussia's ruthless horde. 

Not his to win on Marne, or Meuse, or Rhine ; 
Nor, dying, on the Thames to lie in state ; 
But from the sea to be a cry at night, 

Bidding his millions rise and break the line, 

Where Belgium's thousands hold their own, and wait 
Till Right is strong enough to vanquish Might. 

June 10, 1 91 6. 

[«3] 



VERDUN 



A S stands a lighthouse on a headland rock, 

And with its beams illumes the surging waves 
Hurled blindly by the envious sea, which laves 
Its deep foundation's challenge to their shock ; 

While, maddened by the patient rays that mock 

Its utmost strength, the pride-lashed water braves 
The beacon-tower, and scorns the flame which saves 
From shipwreck all that on the ocean flock 

Its wild and starless waste ; so standest thou, 
Verdun, against the dark, material might, 
Which vainly storms thy spirit walls. Naught daunts 

The courage of thy sacrificial vow 

That none shall pass o'er thee, to quench the light 
Flashed worldward from the towering soul of France. 

June 17, 191 6. 

[«5] 



FUORI I BARBARI 



'"PO thee was given the hardest task of all, 
Brave Italy, when Europe to her aid 
Summoned the nations centuries had made 
Prime guardians of the light which Rome to Gaul, 

And Gaul to Britain, passed, till o'er the wall 

Of western seas it shone, too bright to fade. 
For thine it was to challenge, undismayed, 
The eastern Huns who, with thy gates in thrall, 

Threatened thy garden ; then, through gun-swept snows, 
Master each Alpine peak and torrent-bed, 
And fight, — by faint praise cheered, — till each redout 

Held as a threat by Rome's transalpine foes 

Was Rome's again, and Hadria's watershed 
Joined in the Latin cry : " Barbarians out !" 

August 1 8, 1 91 6. 

[■7] 



ALMA ROMA 



OPIRIT of Rome, eternal Latin Soul, 

Remembered Mother of the South and West, 
Thine heirs are met again, to stand the test 
Set by Barbarians who would fain control 

By ruthless Might a world, whose ancient goal 

Was Peace through Justice ! What the gods deemed best 
They gave through thee ; hence, at their new behest 
Thy provinces reform their whilom whole. 

Caesar's three parts of Gaul, Britannia's strands 
And Lusitania join with Italy 
And Africa, to win the Alps and Rhine ; 

While on the Danube, Trajan's Dacia stands, 
And calls on Greece to set the Orient free ; 
And only Spain forgets that she was thine. 

September 6, 1916. 

[>9] 



ENGLAND'S EFFORT 



\X 7HAT has old England ventured that will bear 
The test of martyred Belgium's sacrifice 
Of all for honor's sake, approach the price 
France paid for loyalty, or yet compare 

In pluck with what Italia's legions dare, 

Who storm the Alps, and fight through fields of ice ? 
What that, in Death's dark ledger, will suffice 
To balance patient Russia's piteous share ? 

As none of these did, England, with the flower 
Of all her bravest having crowned the cup 
All had to drink, to save each from the Huns, 

Tasted its dregs when, in the midnight hour 

Of Freedom's world-wide peril, she gave up 
The individual freedom of her sons. 

May 24, 1917. 

[21] 



THE LUSITANIA 

(i) 

/^JUT on the loyal Ocean's Jap they sailed, 
Scorning the threats of Man's disloyal foe, 
Since sure that with their human rights would go 
Protection from a flag which never quailed. 

Alas, America, for naught availed 

Thine endless, unbacked warnings to bestow 

Safety on those who, now so long ago, 

Were slain, and since — have only been bewailed ! 

The Lusitania's drowned unheeded lie, 

Men, babes and women, clinging to a flag, 
Which on the ocean's floor lies furled, but proud ; 

But which above its waves — the world asks why — 
Floats impotent for peace, a flouted rag, 
The shamed precursor of a people's shroud. 

October 13, 191 6. 

[»3] 



AMERICA'S VERDICT 

Q'ER Europe's bomb-swept trench and battle field 
The awful thunders of her War are heard, 
Drowning the whispers of a peace deferred 
Until Injustice has been forced to yield. 

Yet, spite of fears which cannot be concealed, 

The old world's hopes today are strangely stirred 

To silence, as she listens for the word 

Whereby the new world's soul shall stand revealed. 

America unfolds her inmost mind, 

Her doom upon herself, chooses her goal, 
And paints her portrait for eternity ; 

Hence as the winged words of her spokesman find 
Their fated way to voice his country's soul, 
Humanity asks God what they will be. 

April i, 191 7. 

[*5] 



THE LUSITANIA 
(a) 

"^TAY, not a shroud ! For as a wedding-gown 
For Russia's bridals with the hero hosts 
Of Liberty, it rises with the ghosts 
Of martyrs from the waves, eager to crown 

The destined union of Mankind, and drown 
Disloyalty. Unfurled between her coasts, 
Columbia's flag makes good at last her boasts 
Of humanism, her century-old renown. 

For Belgium's and the Lusitania's sakes 

Italia broke her bondage to the North, 
And armed, to save the Alps from tyranny ; 

So now, across the Sea, the new world breaks 
Her western isolation, and sends forth 
Her sons, to set the old world's valleys free. 

April 13, 1 9 1 7 . 

[»7] 



AVE DANTE 
1321-1921 

A BOVE Man's war-wracked world a veteran throng 
Of singing spirits gathers in the air, 
Called from the Poets' Heaven to take its share 
In Right's impending victory over Wrong. 

Far in its van the Eagle Eye of Song 

Looms o'er Ravenna, where he died, and where 
He saw God's Freedom in the dazzling glare 
Of visions, which to every race belong. 

Him his redeemed, united Italy — 

Her Alps new crowned with Monza's iron band, 
Her Hadria wedded with her Doge's ring, — 

Hails as the Prophet-Bard of Liberty, 

And bids the free of every tongue and land 
Join in her Ave, and their tribute bring. 

October 28, 191 7. 

[»9] 



THE PEACE OF GOD 



T3AST understanding is the Peace of God 
By all that fail His Wrath to understand, 
Who holds the olive in His gentle hand, 
And in the other a chastising rod. 

When lightnings kill at Jove's Olympian nod, 

When tempests drown at Neptune's stern command, 
Their deeds are His, whose face once cheered the land 
With smiles of love, whose feet the seas once trod. 

God grant us, then, to understand His wrath 
By trusting in the justice of His will, 
Whate'er its bidding, till War's trumpets cease ; 

And follow listening on the painful path 

Where wrongs are righted, loud His voice or still, 
Who, not as man's world gives it, giveth peace. 

June 22, 1 91 7. 

[3'] 



GERMANY 



\X7HAT, Germany, avails thine old repute 
For quaint geniality and truthfulness, 
Now that in falsehood thou dost acquiesce, 
And of humanity art destitute ? 

For, having made thyself the prostitute 

Of Prussia's lust for power, thy pitiless 
Ambition leaves thee naught, wherewith to dress 
With love or trust a strength which none dispute. 

And yet thy music, wherein thou didst reign 

Supreme, and what was once thy spirit's bent, 
Gemuthlichkeit, unless thy lute be riven, 

Doom thee to sing, whatever Europe's pain, 

Her saddest songs, and be — if thou repent — 
Her dearest child, because her most forgiven. 

June 28, 1917. 

[33] 



